


Shawn Spencer Is Not Psychic

by klfette



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Headcanon, Real Psychic Shawn Spencer, ambiguously but implied yknow, egregious comma usage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23648635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klfette/pseuds/klfette
Summary: He's just a good detective. That's all.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 71





	Shawn Spencer Is Not Psychic

Contrary to popular belief, Shawn Spencer was not psychic.

He was smart, and he was observant, but he wasn’t psychic. He was good at guessing. He was good at knowing when someone was lying. He was good at making deductions. After all, he was raised by one of Santa Barbara’s best detectives.

He could walk into a crime scene and notice details that other people would miss. The ones that were important, even if it didn’t look that way. The ones that whispered in his ear, “hey, look at me!”, the ones that seemed almost highlighted against the blurry backdrop of the crime scene. He would remember those details. He did have an eidetic memory, after all. Even if he couldn’t describe anything that wasn't important. 

Shawn could walk into a room and, without taking any particular note beforehand, tell you how many hats were in the room. Well, part of the time. If someone was going to ask. There was a period after high school, when he was out traveling the country, when he thought it had disappeared. It occurred to him, while sitting alone at a busy restaurant, to attempt his trick, and when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell. Probably just out of practice, he had thought to himself, and promptly forgot about it. But when he was back in Santa Barbara, and he walked into the bar with his father, he found himself taking notice of the hats. When his father, Henry, asked him how many hats there were, he was prepared. 

And that was just how it was. Shawn was good at sorting things into piles, the things that mattered and the things that didn’t. His criteria for categorization was simple- if he remembered it, it was important. If he didn’t, it wasn’t.

Shawn didn’t have visions, or anything of the sort. Sure, whenever he was presenting his latest theory on a case, he could picture the encounter in his head, clear as day. He could almost hear some of the things they said, see some of the movements they made. And more than once he was slightly startled by the accuracy of his theories. It was because he was good at reading people, he told himself. He could predict how people responded to things easily. Even if he barely knew the subjects. Even if he had never met them. He was good at deduction. He was a good detective.

He wasn’t psychic.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little ficlet I've been thinking about basically nonstop for the past five years. I always thought it was odd that Shawn could pick up details that literally would not matter at all, and while I know that's just due to the magic of TV, I like the concept. There's a lot of dramatic irony in the idea that he thinks he's faking being psychic but whoops, he's not! It's very fun.


End file.
